Updated January 7, 2017
NEW December Live Shows
NEW Bidiniband Third Album
Saturday February 4 2017 - Bidiniband @ Castro's Lounge, 2116e Queen Street East Toronto, ON 9PM-11PM
Thursday February 16 2017 - Bidiniband and Bryan Trottier @ Hockey Day In Canada, Kenora, ON
Saturday February 18 2017 - Bidiniband and Bryan Trottier @ Time Change(d) High and Lonesome Club, Winnipeg, ON 7PM-9PM
Dave helps induct Rush to Songwriters Hall of Fame
On March 28 2010, Dave helped induct Rush to the Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame by reading from his book For Those About to Rock. Click here to listen to the reading at the ceremony.
Dave joins Adventure Canada to circumnavigate Labrador
Over the past 20 years, Adventure Canada has become one of the foremost specialists in Canada and the Arctic. Its educational programs and fun, casual spirit bring people back to experience first-hand the beauty that is our less-travelled spaces.
Dave joins Adventure Canada to tour the world's largest estuary, the Gulf of St. Lawrence, as on-board musician/author in September. Click here for more info.
Film, video and theatre ... the other performing arts
Five Hole film now online!
Named a top ten Canadian short film in 2009 at the Toronto Film Festival, Five Hole: Tales of Hockey Erotica is a visual and aural feast for fans of Dave Bidini the writer and musician.
The goalie with the fabulous legs (you gotta see it to believe it) introduces a magisterial sweep of the camera from waaay above the nosebleeds down to a post-game scrum and then a face-off at centre ice between Bidini and "the "greatest" hockey player ever in this tale of unrequited love.
After its repeat broadcast on Bravo!, the short film is now available online ...
... at the site of its creators ...
... and on YouTube if you want to leave a comment.
Finally, Five Hole the book and music are also still available.
And more hockey on film
Guess which golden-tressed '70s superstar is set to star in a hockey film being shot in Toronto that will also feature appearances from Dave Bidini and Hawksley Workman. Click here for info. No, not a very young Wayne Gretzky: it's someone more "physical."
Fandom on YouTube
A Rheos fan self-dubbed "Tayloreh" has posted a loving tribute to the band and a cover of Dave's "Little Bird, Little Bird" on YouTube. Worth a look.
NEW BidiniBand's third album
The Motherland, db's third release with the BidiniBand on Pheromone Recordings was released May 29 2014. The album is available for purchase at Maple Music.
30 songs in 30 days to save Lake Ontario
This is a missive direct from Dave in support of Waterkeepers.
30 Short Songs about Lake Ontario
"Hey folks. Here are some songs. Lots of songs. One a day. Swim Drink Fish. And listen. Then donate. It's easy! It's fun! It's 30 Short Songs about Lake Ontario!"
The Swim Drink Fish Music Club is an online music and audio experience
developed by Lake Ontario
Waterkeepers in collaboration with other Waterkeeper organizations
across Canada.
Rarities and newbies
The good folks at Zunior, Canada's favourite source for independent digital music, have worked with db to make four tunes available for free to music fans:
- from Calling Out the Chords, "Horses";
- from Harmelodia, "I Fab Thee";
- from the Whale Music Concert, "Shaved Head"; and
- from Double Live, "Feed Yourself."
These albums can't hardly be found anywhere in record stores but are available as digital downloads exclusively from Zunior. Check 'em out and, if you don't have 'em, see what you're missing.
As well, db's written and performed the theme song for a new animated series called The Somethings about a time-travelling rock band. He's developing the series with Trace Pictures, the folks responsible for several Rheostatics videos, including "The Tarleks." The tune features db on drums and acoustic, Paul Linklater on bass, and Janet Morassutti on guitar, and was produced by Don Kerr at Rooster Studios.
Reading and writing
NEW Dave launches 9th book
Dave's 9th book, Home and Away: In Search of Dreams at the Homeless World Cup of Soccer, will be released in September 2010 by Greystone Books.
Home and Away is an uplifting tale describing Dave's travels with Team Canada as they compete for the Homeless World Cup in 2008 in Melbourne, Australia.
Click here for more information.
Is Stephen Harper reading Dave Bidini?
Mann-Booker Prize-winning novelist and supremely respectful political gadfly Yann Martel has been sending Prime Minister Stephen Harper a new book every two weeks since Parliament's perfunctory recognition of the 50th anniversary of the Canada Council for the Arts.
On December 7, 2009, Martel sent Harper his 70th gift, Dave's Tropic of Hockey. Has Harper read it? Who knows? His office has sent only five responses to the 72 offerings made by Martel, not one from the PM himself.
This is what Martel says about Tropic.
"Nothing loved can be reduced to mere entertainment, to mere anything. So just as I have an exalted view of literature and bristle at the notion of art as mere entertainment and cannot fathom anyone having a good, thinking life that doesn’t include reading, so Dave Bidini exalts, bristles and cannot fathom on the subject of hockey. Each one of us cares, defends and justifies what he or she loves. Put all those passions together, and you have a society, a culture, a nation. A last word, then, on Tropic of Hockey: it’s the most Canadian book I’ve sent you."
To see the rest, click here.
To learn more about Tropic of Hockey, click here.
db's books available for purchase online
db's books published by McClelland & Stewart are now available for purchase direct from the publisher online.
UPDATED Author and musician Paul Quarrington dead at 56
Paul Quarrington died of lung cancer on January 21, 2010 at the age of 56.
On January 23, Hockey Night in Canada was among the many who paid tribute to Quarrington. HNIC opened with a video montage featuring quotes from the author and the Rheostatics' "Dopefiends and Boozehounds." Click here to view.
Dave also wrote a tribute to Quarrington published in the January 21 National Post.
On October 24, Dave hosted a celebaration of the life and times of Canadian author Paul Quarrington, whose novel Whale Music has figured so prominently in the history of the Rheostatics and whose friendship has meant so much to Dave. The occasion included a Rheostatics 'reunion,' some of which was caught on video and in still photos.
Desmond Howl (how's that for a Whale Music fan?) has posted a video of the Rheos performing "Claire" to YouTube and still photos to Photobucket. Rockin' rock photographer Beth Hamill has also posted still photos to Flickr.
Dave championed Quarrington's King Leary to first-place in the annual Canada Reads competition in 2008.
Miscellany
Rheos box-set?
Rheofan par excellence Darrin Cappe has finished work to create a DIY Rheostatics box set. Visit Northern Wish for details.